This past weekend, June 28th through June 30th saw the reconvening of the annual Left Forum. This year the event was held at a new venue, Long Island University Brooklyn (LIU) and St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. Left Forum has been billed as the largest annual gathering in North America of the U.S. and International Left. This years event was titled What Is Left To Be Done? an excellent question given the dystopian reality the world finds itself presently in. Left Forum was founded in 1981 and was originally called the Socialist Scholars Conference. In brief, Left Forum brings together intellectuals, academics and activist whose purpose is, among other things, to share their perspectives, experiences, strategies and visions.

These video’s are but a small sample but represent a broad perspective of current left political thought.

What follows for your consideration are seven sessions conducted at the conference out of a total of 160 scheduled events. These programs have been uploaded to the Open University of the Left YouTube channel.

Double Jeopardy: Crisis in Economic Life and in Relationships in the U.S. Today, Dr. Richard D. Wolff, Kimberly Westcott, Dr. Harriet Fraad, Robert K. Drinan:

The End of the “End of History”: The Left Alternative to Conservative Liberalism. The Failure of Fukuyama’s Forecast, Dr. David Harvey, Dr. Michael Hudson, Dr. David M. Kotz, Dr. Alexander Buzgalin:

Dismantling the U.S. Empire’s Fake News: Lessons from the book “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.” Danny Haiphong, Margaret Kimberly, Dan Kovalik, Glen Ford:

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday June 22 at 2:30 pm at the Logan Square Branch of the Chicago Public Library 3030 W. Fullerton Ave. (cross street: Sacramento) Chicago, free parking, wheelchair accessible (Bus Route: 74 Fullerton, Blue Line: Logan Square)

Jerry Harris presents: “The Future of Globalization: Neo-Fascism or the Green New Deal”

Political upheavals are surging through global capitalism. Rocked by the severe economic crisis of 2008, the veil of legitimacy has been ripped away as growing inequalities and social contradictions are now visible to everyone. Globalism, achieved hegemony throughout the world in the 1980’s, but the ruling class consensus began to split with the Asian crisis of 1998 and now has been ripped apart. For the transnational capitalist class there are three possible roads forward: 1) continued stagnation with small neo-Keynesian adjustments to neo-liberal dogma; 2) greater authoritarian rule with nationalist rhetoric and policies, mixed with accumulation strategies based in global militarization and the security state; 3) green capitalism and accumulation based in the fourth industrial revolution. This presentation will concentrate on the stark choices of neo-fascism or the Green New Deal essential to understanding the coming 2020 election.

Jerry Harris is the Organizational Secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday May 25 at 2:30 pm at the Logan Square Branch of the Chicago Public Library 3030 W. Fullerton Ave. (cross street: Sacramento) Chicago, free parking, wheelchair accessible (Bus Route: 74 Fullerton, Blue Line: Logan Square)

Danny Postel and Dr. William Mazzarella presents: “Populism, Trumpism and the Left”

Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Modi, Erdogan, Salvini, Duerte, Sisi, how should we make sense of this surge of authoritarian populism across the globe? What are the forces driving this phenomena? Is it more about economic conditions or racial anxieties– or some combination? What does the rise of populist parties and leaders mean for democracy, and for progressive movements in the US and globally? What is needed to combat it? Is “left populism” the solution, as a recent Jacobin essay asked? Or, is populism a decidedly right-wing force at this point, its left-wing history irretrievably lost? What role do emotions play in populist politics? Can we build an effective politics that is not effective?

William Mazzarella and Danny Postel will explore these and other questions in dialogue.

William Mazzarella is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Danny Postel is Assistant Director of the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern University and Visiting Lecturer in the International Studies Program at University of Illinois Chicago.

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday April 20 at 2:30 pm at the Logan Square Branch of the Chicago Public Library 3030 W. Fullerton Ave (cross street: Sacramento). Chicago, free parking, wheelchair accessible (Bus route:74 Fullerton, Blue Line: Logan Square)

Here’s a riddle: What kind of “presidential library” is empty of both documents and artifacts, but chock-full of clout and basic humbug? Answer: The proposed Obama Presidential Center, a billionaire-funded, city subsidized boondoggle that, if built, will pave over a major chunk of Jackson Park and set a dangerous precedent for future lakefront “development” and privatization of the commons. Chicago based writer and critic Hugh Iglarsh examines the non-library from a left perspective, focusing on the major players (gentrification!) and concluding that it’s an all-too-fitting monument to the Obama presidency and the larger neoliberal project. Iglarsh will be joined by Charlotte Adelman, chief plaintiff of the ongoing federal lawsuit against the OPC, who will discuss the prospects of the battle to prevent the de-greening of historic Jackson Park.

The Following Alternate Location Has Been Scheduled For This OUL Event:

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday March 23 at 2:30 pm at the Logan Square Branch of the Chicago Public Library 3030 W. Fullerton Ave. Chicago, (Cross Street Sacramento) free parking, wheelchair accessible (Bus route: 74 Fullerton, Blue Line: Logan Square)

The nation is already descending into yet another preposterous, precisely time-staggered quadrennial major party big money candidate-centered electoral extravaganza—one that could very well re-elect an aspiring fascist leader to the imperial presidency. It is an apt moment to reflect on the all-too-rarely noted problem that the United States is authoritarian by constitutional design. U.S. politics and policy are poisoned beyond all democratic recognition by an explicitly anti-egalitarian charter drafted and passed by 18th Century slaveholders and merchant capitalists for whom popular sovereignty was the ultimate nightmare. Street will discuss how U.S. politics and policy are badly distorted by the nation’s exceptionally durable charter and how we might finally and productively stop playing “Simon Says” with militant anti-democrats like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.

Paul Street is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, teacher, journalist, historian, author and speaker
based in Iowa City Iowa and Chicago, Illinois. He has authored seven books to date and essays and commentaries have appeared in a wide variety of media venues such as CounterPunch, Truthdig, Black Agenda Report, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and CNN to name only a few.

By both its supporters and detractors, neoliberalism is usually considered an economic policy agenda. This presentation argues that it is much more than that: a complete worldview, neoliberalism presents the competitive marketplace as the model for true human flourishing. It has enjoyed great success: from the struggle for “global competitiveness” on the world stage down to our individual practices of self-branding and social networking, neoliberalism has transformed every aspect of social life in the West and beyond. This talk explores the sources of neoliberalism’s remarkable success and the roots of its current decline. Neoliberalism’s appeal is its promise of freedom in the form of unfettered free choice. But that freedom is a trap: we have just enough freedom to be accountable for our failings, but not enough freedom to create genuine substantive change. If we choose rightly, we ratify our own exploitation. If we choose wrongly, we are consigned to the outer darkness and then demonized as the cause of social ills.

Adam Kotsko is on the faculty of the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College in Naperville where he teaches in the humanities and social sciences. He is the author, most recently, of “The Prince of This World,” a study of the political legacy of pre-modern Christian ideas about the devil, and “Neoliberalism’s Demons,” which argues that the contemporary political-economic order functions on the basis of a logic of moral entrapment that echoes the theological concept of demonization.